"Both the legal and the corporate world … are very much watching Dupont," says Dr. Walden, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. "Dupont is a big chemical company, and they are using a Filipino legal service for some of their liability and insurance work.

"And so they argue that this can save them a lot of money. They are estimating that they can save as much as 70 percent on their legal costs in these areas," he adds. "Foreign lawyers are also cutting costs not only in terms of their salaries, they are cutting paper costs by using scanners and digital images of legal documents for ease of transition.

"So if Dupont finds this is a success, we may very well see other firms follow suit," Walden concludes, "and this could mean big changes for the $225 billion U.S. legal services industry."